June 27, 2025 • 18 mins
Late last week, the Buss family, longtime owners of the Los Angeles Lakers, announced that they would sell the franchise for a record-breaking $10 billion valuation.
On today’s Big Take podcast, host David Gura and Bloomberg’s sports business reporter Randall Williams break down what we know about the deal so far and discuss why America’s wealthiest families seem to be getting out of the game.
Read more: Los Angeles Lakers Confirms Majority Stake Sale to Mark Walter
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcoming Doctor Buss and the Hall of Fame are three
Laker legends, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and pat Riley Lady.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
And Gentlemen, Doctor Jerry Buss. The Los Angeles Lakers is
one of the most iconic franchises in professional sports, and
that's thanks in large part to Jerry Buss, who bought
the team in nineteen seventy nine. Here he is at
his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Some three decades later,
(00:37):
after two years of endless negotiations, I purchased the Los
Angeles Lakers.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
What a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It was a package deal that included the La Kings,
the Great Western Forum, and a thirteen hundred acre ranch.
Bus paid the media mogul Jack Kent Cook sixty seven
million dollars, which would be about three hundred million, and
at the time he promised to give Angelinos a team
worthy of Tinseltown.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
He was one of the more flamboyant sports owners out
there who just took a lot of pride in running
the team and having stars and being at the epicenter
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Randall Williams covers the business of sports for Bloomberg, and
he says Jerry Buss transformed the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The game ames the mic hasn't won it.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Showtime is the slogan that became synonymous with the team's
style on and off the court. Over three decades, Bus
revolutionized professional sports. He hired an in house band, created
the Lakers Girls, and he signed a series of superstars.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
He liked to win, and so with him loving to
win as much as he did, he spared no expense
to bring in the best of players. I mean, you
think about all the Lakers stars over the years, whether
that be Magic Johnson, Kareem James Worthy, Kobe shack now,
Lebron and Luca all of these people are embedded into
the culture of Los Angeles, and Jerry Buss was someone
(02:06):
who he wanted to be like. I brought this.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Randall says Jerry Buss empowered his players and some legendary coaches,
including Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, to do what the
Lakers did best, to win. The team had eleven championships
and more than thirty playoff appearances in forty six years.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Right here, I've hired a right trapping chups.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
How much is the franchise today a direct result of
the way he approached the team.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's on the brand, identity, the value, the city, the winning.
I mean, you could argue that they are the number
one sports brand in America over the Yankees and the Cowboys.
Now there would be some very angry Yankees fans and
Cowboys fans out there, of course, but the Lakers are
top three, and I'd say they're not three.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
What accounts for that. I've got a six year old
boy and he was insistent that he get a a
Broni curacy, which I thought was so wild. Here we
are in New York in the zeitgeist. So how did
that happen? How did this team get that kind of
cultural currency.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I think it's just stars in winning, the stars winning,
and a lot of culture. Like you look at who's
on the Lakers sidelines. You listen to the way that
NBA players celebrities talk about wanting to be at Laker games.
The Lakers have won a championship in just about every decade,
and they haven't done it in a way that's quiet.
It's like with the biggest stars. You think of the eighties,
(03:29):
it was Magic who at the time He was considered
a goat, and he still is to some degree. And
then you have an international star in Luca. They just
keep ushering in these stars for almost half a century.
It's also been a family business, majority owned by Jerry
Buss until his death in twenty thirteen and by his
children after that. The Bus name was synonymous with the
(03:53):
Laker brand until now.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The Bus family has agreed to sell a controlling interest
in the Los Angeles Lakers to the current owner of
the La Dodgers. Mark Walter, chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners,
will assume majority ownership.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Late last week, buses six children decided to sell their
stake in the Lakers to the CEO of an investment
and advisory firm for a record ten billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Ten billion dollars is a huge number, but they might
have gotten more on the open market. This may be
looked at, and let's say a decade from now that
this was a deal. Ten billion dollars was a deal,
which is insane to think about.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I'm David Gera and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today on the show. What this record setting
sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to a billionaire investor,
says about the business of sports today and what it
could mean both for the future of pro sports and
for fans. When Jerry Buss died in twenty thirteen, ownership
(04:56):
of the Los Angeles Lakers went to his six children.
His daughter, Jenie, who'd been overseeing basketball operations, eventually became
the team's president and controlling owner. In the years since,
the team, which had dominated the NBA's Western Conference, has
fallen behind other franchises, winning a single title with Lebron
James in twenty twenty. Bloomberg's Randall Williams says that's due
(05:19):
in part to how much the Lakers' owners have been
willing to spend.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The new version of the Best Family. From what I've
been told is that they are extremely frugal. They don't
spend on the things that maybe the rest of the
NBA does, and you see that in the way that
these things are valued. If you look at Sporder Coas
valuations or Forbes or CNBC, I'm pretty sure all of
them have the Warriors and Nicks slightly ahead of the Lakers.
And you could argue that's because over the last decade,
(05:45):
the Lakers maybe have not invested into things the same
way that the Warriors and the Knicks have. The Warriors
have a new stadium, They had probably the most transformational
basketball player ever in Steph Curry. They won four titles
and six finals appearances, and so they were always at
the center. For the Lakers, it took until Lebron James
(06:05):
got back, and then you know, their title was in
the bubble. So no parade, and so the way that
they have carried this business is not the way that
you are going to be as most profitable.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Let's talk about the deal, and it's hard to get
past that headline number, but at this point, what do
we know about the terms of it.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Jeanie Buss, who is Jerry Buss's daughter, is going to
stay on as governor of the team, and what that
means is that she's going to have a day to
day role in managing things. So the governors of the
team attend the Board of Governor's meetings, they vote on
various things. So Mark Walter is still going to be
the owner of the team, but he's not going to
(06:44):
be at all these meetings. Now, I'm sure he's going
to be well informed and he's going to be spending
his dollars wisely to bring in different free agents to
i'd say diversify the business. We don't know exactly how
the deal is structured just yet. We just know that
they agreed to a ten billion dollar purchase and at
some point Mark Walter will take over, but it's not
going to be for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Who is Mark Walter, I mean, he's He doesn't have
the kind of low or legend of Jerry Buzz certainly,
and he's now kind of fashion himself as a kind
of king of VLA Sports.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well, he's an extremely rich guy. Let's start there. He
started Gugenheim Partners, which made all his money there, and
then eventually purchased the Dodgers. And for La Natives, this
is a great sign because Mark Walter has spared no
expense to spend on the Dodgers. To introduce the newest
member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Shohei Otani, wearing the
(07:34):
iconic Dodgers' uniform for the first time after signing an
unprecedented seven hundred million dollar contract. Now you bring someone
like him into the Lakers, and what this means like
this isn't going to affect salary cap. Like, you're not
going to be able to pay players more than anybody else,
but you might be able to renovate a training facility,
you might be able to invest more money into the
crypto dot com marine. You're just going to be able
(07:57):
to spend more cash to make LA a even more
desirable market than it already is. I mean a lot
of people come to LA because like, Okay, it's the stars,
it's the lore of the Lakers. And now you have
an owner who is going to be like, yeah, I
want to win. I still want to win, and I'm
not going to stop spending money until I get back
to the top.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
We know he's a billionaire. Is he going to pony
up all this himself or is it still kind of
unclear how this is going to be structured in that sense.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
How it's come out there in the release is that
it's him. Well, it's him now in terms of where
this money is coming from, Like ten billion dollars is
a lot of money. The Bloomberg Billionaire Index has him
worth at twelve point five billion. I can't imagine that.
You know, he liquidated all of his assets and then
bought this thing. Some of it could be on the
back end, some of it could be on the front end.
We're not exactly sure yet, but this will go to
(08:46):
the Board of Governors. We may find out more a
little bit then, but I don't think anybody's really concerned
with this. So long as it gets approved, people are
going to be like ten billion dollars and no one's
going to want to pay any more than that.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I'm reluctant to ask this because I feel like a
few monthsgover When's saying the same thing about the Celtics sale,
which is is this is this a signifier that we've
reached peak valuation of a franchise? Like this doesn't feel
like the peak to you.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
No, No, it doesn't feel like the peak to me.
But it does slow things down just because of the
fact that the Lakers don't own their stadium, and that's
a huge, huge factor in this, because of the fact
that if you don't own your stadium, then you don't
get the revenue from things that aren't related to basketball,
So concerts, festivals, anything that you host in the arena,
you're not going to see money from. With that in mind,
(09:31):
if the Celtics went for six and the Lakers go
for ten. Then I do think that when the NBA
eventually decides to expand, if the next team is sold,
you're going to have a lot of billionaires and rich
people out there who are going to look at the
Lakers and they're like, I don't want to pay that much.
You know, you look at the last let's say five sales.
You had the three billion dollar Charlotte Hornets when Michael
Jordan's sold them. You had the three point five billion
(09:52):
dollar sale of the Mavericks. You had the four billion
dollars sale of the Suns. Now that jumps to six
with the sale of the Celtics, now that jumps to ten.
That's a huge jump. So anyone who's going to be
selling the Trailblazers are for sale right now, I would
guesstimate that they go somewhere between four five and five
to five. But if you're the NFL watching this, and
the Seahawks eventually have to be put up for sale,
(10:13):
so do the Saints, who knows what they go for it.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
We've seen this trend of private equity firms and sovereign
wealth funds getting involved in professional sports. How is that
likely to change the terrain even more?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You're going forward, You're going to see more private equity
across sports period. Whether people are happy with it or not.
They are solution providers. Now where fans could get concerned
is if they ever take control stakes. Now that's not
happening right now. A lot of times they're writing checks
and going away. These checks are for stadiums, These checks
are for debt on a team. They are for state
(10:48):
taxes when you are passing the team down from one
member to the next, those type of things. That's what
private equity is looking to solve the NBA and has
some of the most flexible rules out there, where team
can have up to thirty percent owned by private equity.
One single private equity firm can own twenty. But obviously
you could split that up in three, you could split
(11:09):
it up in two. There's a bunch of different ways
you could split it if someone wanted to do that. However,
it would raise concerns within the NBA's Board of governors
as to why you need that much private equity dollars
in a league that's profitable. I do think at some
point in time all of these floors will raise, These
rules will become more loose in the NFL specifically they
allow ten percent, but you're going to need more because
(11:31):
these stadiums are continuing to get older and there's just
not a lot of rich families out there. And as
we see what's going on in Chicago right now with
the Bears and Kansas City with the Royals and the Chiefs,
there are some cities in states who are just like,
I'm not paying a dime to build this stadium, and
then you're stuck there, threatening to move and negotiating, and
that's very exhausting.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
A lot of these families don't want to sell because
it's very precious. A. It's a profitable business, and B
it's a prize possession that my parents or grandparents bought
this however many some odd years ago. Getting rid of
that now is heartbreaking in a sense. And there are
some families who may look at it as like either
we failed or were successful. No, obviously there's no failure
(12:13):
when you're selling a team for however many billion dollars.
But the sentimental value, the emotions that are in this
that's where you see the effect in private equity dilutes
that in some form because eventually they need to exit,
and so for fans. Right now, it's not a concerning time,
but in twenty thirty years it could.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
After the break how new ownership structures, which can involve
billions from private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds are
impacting fans. There's been a string of sales recently in
professional sports, and I said to Bloomberg's Randall Williams that
(12:55):
they've seemed to signal the end of an era in
many of the cities where those teams are based. Let
me ask you a kind of cultural question, and that is,
if you have the Lakers being sold by the Buses,
Grosspec's selling the Celtics, Glenn Taylor selling the Timberwolves, Mark
Cuban selling the maveris what's lost when that happens, When
you have a long standing steward of one of these
teams giving that to somebody else, What does that change
(13:18):
kind of mean for the team and the kind of
position that has in these communities.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I think it depends on who's buying and who's selling.
Like Mark Cuban was very influential, obviously the Bus family
was very influential. But sometimes like the owners who come
in and own these different things or are buying these
teams have a profound impact on the businesses that they have,
in large part because they are richer. Like for example,
Josh Harris has come in and completely changed the course
(13:43):
of the Commanders. In two years, He's built a stadium.
They're going to be hosting the Draft. Once the stadium
is built, they'll probably host a Super Bowl in DC.
There are some owners who would come in and because
the NFL and NBA's business are as profitable as they are,
they would just sit back and be like, I own
the team. I'm a nice guy. I'm gonna go sit
back and hide behind the curtain and allow the you know,
(14:04):
everybody to do their jobs. But sometimes there are influential
voices that are lost when you look at someone like
Michael Jordan's selling the Hornets. Michael Jordan is arguably the
most important sports figure of all time, and he represented
an empowerment for athletes to be like, I made so
much money that now I'm in the inner circle. Athletes
(14:25):
in large part are on the outer circle of the
billionaires club, and Michael Jordan getting in is like, okay,
well I can now own this. You see Lebron talking
about I want to own the Las Vegas expansion team.
Dwayne Wade, I believe, bought into the Utah Jazz at
a minority minority stake. But when Michael Jordan exits and
now you have no black owners, you have no player owners,
(14:47):
it impacts in some ways the outlook of Now, I'm
gonna tell you right now, Michael Jordan didn't do the
best job of running the Hornets by any means, but
he provided a lot of sentimental value. He provided a
lot of hope for players to be like, Wow, Michael
Jordan can do this, Maybe I can too.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And when private equity gets involved, what does that mean
for the fan experience? Is there a world in which
getting a pe firm involved makes tickets less expensive, improves
the experience overall?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, it depends on how you look at improve Let's
talk about the Buffalo Bills. For example, the Buffalo Bills
sold a ten percent stake to arc those partners, who
is arguably the most well experienced private equity firm out
there in terms of sports. Arctos is going to be
coming in in all likelihood are going to be putting
that money into the Buffalo Bill's new stadium. Well, when
(15:37):
a new stadium gets built gradually, and naturally those prices
for tickets are going to go because it's a new stadium.
They also have an incredible quarterback. They're going to be
selling new luxury suites and all sorts of different ticket packages.
So in some aspects, yes, it is going to provide
a better experience. However, for fans who have been going
(15:58):
to the Bills Stadium or however many years, if you're
a season ticket holder and these ticket prices go up
and now you're priced out, then you could argue that
this hurt me because I can't afford this anymore. I'm
sure that the NFL and NBA and MB and all
of its owners would just say, get your money up.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I'm very curious what this sale says about the state
of the business of sports today.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I think sports is in a healthy spot. This is
the biggest sale in a very long time. If the
Lakers are gone for closer to the Celtics, I still
think that it would show health. But the fact that
they went for four billion dollars more is incredible. I
don't want to compare this to the Knicks or to
the Cowboys. They would go for more than the Lakers.
I would imagine just because I believe that those sales
(16:45):
would be run in a public forum. But for the
average fan watching this, this is a good sign. Now.
Do I think that we are closer to the ceiling
now than we were before? Absolutely? And obviously all of
these valuations are tied to media deals. Whatever the next
media deal is going to be is inevitably going to
raise valuations even more. But the NFL's last media deal
was one hundred plus billion dollars. What is the next
(17:08):
one going to be? And so from a big picture aspect,
I think sports are in a good spot for the
next fifteen to twenty years. Now, who knows what this
is going to look like in two decades. Because the
Lakers sell for ten billion right now, what in the
world are they going to go for in fifteen or
twenty And it may not be the Lakers. It could
be a smaller team in any of these leagues that
(17:29):
fetch a huge number. And then the question arises, like
who's going to buy this thing? And goes back to
your questions about when does private equity get involved in
own teams? Outright, We're not in that phase right now.
But if these things continue to rise and valuations continue
to rise, then inevitably you're going to see private equity
own fifty percent stakes. The rules don't allow right now,
(17:52):
but I could see it at some point down the line.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
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(18:20):
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Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcoming Doctor Buss and the Hall of Fame are three
Laker legends, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and pat Riley Lady.
Speaker 3 (00:16):
And Gentlemen, Doctor Jerry Buss. The Los Angeles Lakers is
one of the most iconic franchises in professional sports, and
that's thanks in large part to Jerry Buss, who bought
the team in nineteen seventy nine. Here he is at
his Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Some three decades later,
(00:37):
after two years of endless negotiations, I purchased the Los
Angeles Lakers.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
What a dream come true.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
It was a package deal that included the La Kings,
the Great Western Forum, and a thirteen hundred acre ranch.
Bus paid the media mogul Jack Kent Cook sixty seven
million dollars, which would be about three hundred million, and
at the time he promised to give Angelinos a team
worthy of Tinseltown.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
He was one of the more flamboyant sports owners out
there who just took a lot of pride in running
the team and having stars and being at the epicenter
of Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Randall Williams covers the business of sports for Bloomberg, and
he says Jerry Buss transformed the Lakers.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The game ames the mic hasn't won it.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Showtime is the slogan that became synonymous with the team's
style on and off the court. Over three decades, Bus
revolutionized professional sports. He hired an in house band, created
the Lakers Girls, and he signed a series of superstars.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
He liked to win, and so with him loving to
win as much as he did, he spared no expense
to bring in the best of players. I mean, you
think about all the Lakers stars over the years, whether
that be Magic Johnson, Kareem James Worthy, Kobe shack now,
Lebron and Luca all of these people are embedded into
the culture of Los Angeles, and Jerry Buss was someone
(02:06):
who he wanted to be like. I brought this.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Randall says Jerry Buss empowered his players and some legendary coaches,
including Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, to do what the
Lakers did best, to win. The team had eleven championships
and more than thirty playoff appearances in forty six years.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Right here, I've hired a right trapping chups.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
How much is the franchise today a direct result of
the way he approached the team.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's on the brand, identity, the value, the city, the winning.
I mean, you could argue that they are the number
one sports brand in America over the Yankees and the Cowboys.
Now there would be some very angry Yankees fans and
Cowboys fans out there, of course, but the Lakers are
top three, and I'd say they're not three.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
What accounts for that. I've got a six year old
boy and he was insistent that he get a a
Broni curacy, which I thought was so wild. Here we
are in New York in the zeitgeist. So how did
that happen? How did this team get that kind of
cultural currency.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I think it's just stars in winning, the stars winning,
and a lot of culture. Like you look at who's
on the Lakers sidelines. You listen to the way that
NBA players celebrities talk about wanting to be at Laker games.
The Lakers have won a championship in just about every decade,
and they haven't done it in a way that's quiet.
It's like with the biggest stars. You think of the eighties,
(03:29):
it was Magic who at the time He was considered
a goat, and he still is to some degree. And
then you have an international star in Luca. They just
keep ushering in these stars for almost half a century.
It's also been a family business, majority owned by Jerry
Buss until his death in twenty thirteen and by his
children after that. The Bus name was synonymous with the
(03:53):
Laker brand until now.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
The Bus family has agreed to sell a controlling interest
in the Los Angeles Lakers to the current owner of
the La Dodgers. Mark Walter, chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners,
will assume majority ownership.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Late last week, buses six children decided to sell their
stake in the Lakers to the CEO of an investment
and advisory firm for a record ten billion dollars.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Ten billion dollars is a huge number, but they might
have gotten more on the open market. This may be
looked at, and let's say a decade from now that
this was a deal. Ten billion dollars was a deal,
which is insane to think about.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I'm David Gera and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today on the show. What this record setting
sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to a billionaire investor,
says about the business of sports today and what it
could mean both for the future of pro sports and
for fans. When Jerry Buss died in twenty thirteen, ownership
(04:56):
of the Los Angeles Lakers went to his six children.
His daughter, Jenie, who'd been overseeing basketball operations, eventually became
the team's president and controlling owner. In the years since,
the team, which had dominated the NBA's Western Conference, has
fallen behind other franchises, winning a single title with Lebron
James in twenty twenty. Bloomberg's Randall Williams says that's due
(05:19):
in part to how much the Lakers' owners have been
willing to spend.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
The new version of the Best Family. From what I've
been told is that they are extremely frugal. They don't
spend on the things that maybe the rest of the
NBA does, and you see that in the way that
these things are valued. If you look at Sporder Coas
valuations or Forbes or CNBC, I'm pretty sure all of
them have the Warriors and Nicks slightly ahead of the Lakers.
And you could argue that's because over the last decade,
(05:45):
the Lakers maybe have not invested into things the same
way that the Warriors and the Knicks have. The Warriors
have a new stadium, They had probably the most transformational
basketball player ever in Steph Curry. They won four titles
and six finals appearances, and so they were always at
the center. For the Lakers, it took until Lebron James
(06:05):
got back, and then you know, their title was in
the bubble. So no parade, and so the way that
they have carried this business is not the way that
you are going to be as most profitable.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Let's talk about the deal, and it's hard to get
past that headline number, but at this point, what do
we know about the terms of it.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Jeanie Buss, who is Jerry Buss's daughter, is going to
stay on as governor of the team, and what that
means is that she's going to have a day to
day role in managing things. So the governors of the
team attend the Board of Governor's meetings, they vote on
various things. So Mark Walter is still going to be
the owner of the team, but he's not going to
(06:44):
be at all these meetings. Now, I'm sure he's going
to be well informed and he's going to be spending
his dollars wisely to bring in different free agents to
i'd say diversify the business. We don't know exactly how
the deal is structured just yet. We just know that
they agreed to a ten billion dollar purchase and at
some point Mark Walter will take over, but it's not
going to be for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Who is Mark Walter, I mean, he's He doesn't have
the kind of low or legend of Jerry Buzz certainly,
and he's now kind of fashion himself as a kind
of king of VLA Sports.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Well, he's an extremely rich guy. Let's start there. He
started Gugenheim Partners, which made all his money there, and
then eventually purchased the Dodgers. And for La Natives, this
is a great sign because Mark Walter has spared no
expense to spend on the Dodgers. To introduce the newest
member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Shohei Otani, wearing the
(07:34):
iconic Dodgers' uniform for the first time after signing an
unprecedented seven hundred million dollar contract. Now you bring someone
like him into the Lakers, and what this means like
this isn't going to affect salary cap. Like, you're not
going to be able to pay players more than anybody else,
but you might be able to renovate a training facility,
you might be able to invest more money into the
crypto dot com marine. You're just going to be able
(07:57):
to spend more cash to make LA a even more
desirable market than it already is. I mean a lot
of people come to LA because like, Okay, it's the stars,
it's the lore of the Lakers. And now you have
an owner who is going to be like, yeah, I
want to win. I still want to win, and I'm
not going to stop spending money until I get back
to the top.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
We know he's a billionaire. Is he going to pony
up all this himself or is it still kind of
unclear how this is going to be structured in that sense.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
How it's come out there in the release is that
it's him. Well, it's him now in terms of where
this money is coming from, Like ten billion dollars is
a lot of money. The Bloomberg Billionaire Index has him
worth at twelve point five billion. I can't imagine that.
You know, he liquidated all of his assets and then
bought this thing. Some of it could be on the
back end, some of it could be on the front end.
We're not exactly sure yet, but this will go to
(08:46):
the Board of Governors. We may find out more a
little bit then, but I don't think anybody's really concerned
with this. So long as it gets approved, people are
going to be like ten billion dollars and no one's
going to want to pay any more than that.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
I'm reluctant to ask this because I feel like a
few monthsgover When's saying the same thing about the Celtics sale,
which is is this is this a signifier that we've
reached peak valuation of a franchise? Like this doesn't feel
like the peak to you.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
No, No, it doesn't feel like the peak to me.
But it does slow things down just because of the
fact that the Lakers don't own their stadium, and that's
a huge, huge factor in this, because of the fact
that if you don't own your stadium, then you don't
get the revenue from things that aren't related to basketball,
So concerts, festivals, anything that you host in the arena,
you're not going to see money from. With that in mind,
(09:31):
if the Celtics went for six and the Lakers go
for ten. Then I do think that when the NBA
eventually decides to expand, if the next team is sold,
you're going to have a lot of billionaires and rich
people out there who are going to look at the
Lakers and they're like, I don't want to pay that much.
You know, you look at the last let's say five sales.
You had the three billion dollar Charlotte Hornets when Michael
Jordan's sold them. You had the three point five billion
(09:52):
dollar sale of the Mavericks. You had the four billion
dollars sale of the Suns. Now that jumps to six
with the sale of the Celtics, now that jumps to ten.
That's a huge jump. So anyone who's going to be
selling the Trailblazers are for sale right now, I would
guesstimate that they go somewhere between four five and five
to five. But if you're the NFL watching this, and
the Seahawks eventually have to be put up for sale,
(10:13):
so do the Saints, who knows what they go for it.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
We've seen this trend of private equity firms and sovereign
wealth funds getting involved in professional sports. How is that
likely to change the terrain even more?
Speaker 2 (10:27):
You're going forward, You're going to see more private equity
across sports period. Whether people are happy with it or not.
They are solution providers. Now where fans could get concerned
is if they ever take control stakes. Now that's not
happening right now. A lot of times they're writing checks
and going away. These checks are for stadiums, These checks
are for debt on a team. They are for state
(10:48):
taxes when you are passing the team down from one
member to the next, those type of things. That's what
private equity is looking to solve the NBA and has
some of the most flexible rules out there, where team
can have up to thirty percent owned by private equity.
One single private equity firm can own twenty. But obviously
you could split that up in three, you could split
(11:09):
it up in two. There's a bunch of different ways
you could split it if someone wanted to do that. However,
it would raise concerns within the NBA's Board of governors
as to why you need that much private equity dollars
in a league that's profitable. I do think at some
point in time all of these floors will raise, These
rules will become more loose in the NFL specifically they
allow ten percent, but you're going to need more because
(11:31):
these stadiums are continuing to get older and there's just
not a lot of rich families out there. And as
we see what's going on in Chicago right now with
the Bears and Kansas City with the Royals and the Chiefs,
there are some cities in states who are just like,
I'm not paying a dime to build this stadium, and
then you're stuck there, threatening to move and negotiating, and
that's very exhausting.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Now.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
A lot of these families don't want to sell because
it's very precious. A. It's a profitable business, and B
it's a prize possession that my parents or grandparents bought
this however many some odd years ago. Getting rid of
that now is heartbreaking in a sense. And there are
some families who may look at it as like either
we failed or were successful. No, obviously there's no failure
(12:13):
when you're selling a team for however many billion dollars.
But the sentimental value, the emotions that are in this
that's where you see the effect in private equity dilutes
that in some form because eventually they need to exit,
and so for fans. Right now, it's not a concerning time,
but in twenty thirty years it could.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
After the break how new ownership structures, which can involve
billions from private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds are
impacting fans. There's been a string of sales recently in
professional sports, and I said to Bloomberg's Randall Williams that
(12:55):
they've seemed to signal the end of an era in
many of the cities where those teams are based. Let
me ask you a kind of cultural question, and that is,
if you have the Lakers being sold by the Buses,
Grosspec's selling the Celtics, Glenn Taylor selling the Timberwolves, Mark
Cuban selling the maveris what's lost when that happens, When
you have a long standing steward of one of these
teams giving that to somebody else, What does that change
(13:18):
kind of mean for the team and the kind of
position that has in these communities.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I think it depends on who's buying and who's selling.
Like Mark Cuban was very influential, obviously the Bus family
was very influential. But sometimes like the owners who come
in and own these different things or are buying these
teams have a profound impact on the businesses that they have,
in large part because they are richer. Like for example,
Josh Harris has come in and completely changed the course
(13:43):
of the Commanders. In two years, He's built a stadium.
They're going to be hosting the Draft. Once the stadium
is built, they'll probably host a Super Bowl in DC.
There are some owners who would come in and because
the NFL and NBA's business are as profitable as they are,
they would just sit back and be like, I own
the team. I'm a nice guy. I'm gonna go sit
back and hide behind the curtain and allow the you know,
(14:04):
everybody to do their jobs. But sometimes there are influential
voices that are lost when you look at someone like
Michael Jordan's selling the Hornets. Michael Jordan is arguably the
most important sports figure of all time, and he represented
an empowerment for athletes to be like, I made so
much money that now I'm in the inner circle. Athletes
(14:25):
in large part are on the outer circle of the
billionaires club, and Michael Jordan getting in is like, okay,
well I can now own this. You see Lebron talking
about I want to own the Las Vegas expansion team.
Dwayne Wade, I believe, bought into the Utah Jazz at
a minority minority stake. But when Michael Jordan exits and
now you have no black owners, you have no player owners,
(14:47):
it impacts in some ways the outlook of Now, I'm
gonna tell you right now, Michael Jordan didn't do the
best job of running the Hornets by any means, but
he provided a lot of sentimental value. He provided a
lot of hope for players to be like, Wow, Michael
Jordan can do this, Maybe I can too.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And when private equity gets involved, what does that mean
for the fan experience? Is there a world in which
getting a pe firm involved makes tickets less expensive, improves
the experience overall?
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well, it depends on how you look at improve Let's
talk about the Buffalo Bills. For example, the Buffalo Bills
sold a ten percent stake to arc those partners, who
is arguably the most well experienced private equity firm out
there in terms of sports. Arctos is going to be
coming in in all likelihood are going to be putting
that money into the Buffalo Bill's new stadium. Well, when
(15:37):
a new stadium gets built gradually, and naturally those prices
for tickets are going to go because it's a new stadium.
They also have an incredible quarterback. They're going to be
selling new luxury suites and all sorts of different ticket packages.
So in some aspects, yes, it is going to provide
a better experience. However, for fans who have been going
(15:58):
to the Bills Stadium or however many years, if you're
a season ticket holder and these ticket prices go up
and now you're priced out, then you could argue that
this hurt me because I can't afford this anymore. I'm
sure that the NFL and NBA and MB and all
of its owners would just say, get your money up.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
I'm very curious what this sale says about the state
of the business of sports today.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I think sports is in a healthy spot. This is
the biggest sale in a very long time. If the
Lakers are gone for closer to the Celtics, I still
think that it would show health. But the fact that
they went for four billion dollars more is incredible. I
don't want to compare this to the Knicks or to
the Cowboys. They would go for more than the Lakers.
I would imagine just because I believe that those sales
(16:45):
would be run in a public forum. But for the
average fan watching this, this is a good sign. Now.
Do I think that we are closer to the ceiling
now than we were before? Absolutely? And obviously all of
these valuations are tied to media deals. Whatever the next
media deal is going to be is inevitably going to
raise valuations even more. But the NFL's last media deal
was one hundred plus billion dollars. What is the next
(17:08):
one going to be? And so from a big picture aspect,
I think sports are in a good spot for the
next fifteen to twenty years. Now, who knows what this
is going to look like in two decades. Because the
Lakers sell for ten billion right now, what in the
world are they going to go for in fifteen or
twenty And it may not be the Lakers. It could
be a smaller team in any of these leagues that
(17:29):
fetch a huge number. And then the question arises, like
who's going to buy this thing? And goes back to
your questions about when does private equity get involved in
own teams? Outright, We're not in that phase right now.
But if these things continue to rise and valuations continue
to rise, then inevitably you're going to see private equity
own fifty percent stakes. The rules don't allow right now,
(17:52):
but I could see it at some point down the line.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
The show is hosted by Me, Sarah Holder, juanha and
Seleiah Mosen, Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Eleanor Harrison Dengate, Patti
hirsh Rachel Lewis, Krisky, Naomi Julia Press, Tracy Samuelson, Naomi Shavin,
Alex Sagura, Julia Weaver, Julian Weller, Young Young and take
Yasuzawa make the show. To get more from the Big
(18:20):
Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot Com,
subscribe today at Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast Offer. Thanks
for listening. We'll be back on Monday.
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Sarah Holder
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